PROGRESS IN SYRIA AND PALESTINE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1579, 4 March 1887, Page 3

PROGRESS IN SYRIA AND PALESTINE.

Most marked is the progress made of late years in and about Jaffa, the most southerly seaport of Syria. The changes in this aucient and interesting little town are eminently striking. The old wall that surrounded it, after the primitive Eistern fashion, has been pulled down, and the moat filled up to admit of an extension of the area available for building. North and south of the town is quite a series of suburbs, substantially built by Arab immigrants from Upper Egypt, who are settling in Syria and .Palestine. And it is noticed, too, that the houses have glass windows, a thing unheardof 2U years ago. The country round about Jaffa is even more changed than the port itself. It is being converted inio quite an earthly " paradise," one vast orange-grove, a region of orchards and fruit-gardens The number of such holdings has increased fourfold in in the past quarter of a century, and it is estimated that there are now, in the immediate vicinity of the port, 400 of these orange-gardens, ranging in size from two to 15 acres ; and finer oranges than those of Jaffa are not grown in the {world. They are ovalshaped, run sometimes to 15 inches in circumference, are exquisite in flavour, and one mass of delicious juice. He who has not tasted a Jaffa orange in fine condition does not know what an orange is. Large quantities have been shipped to Liverpool lately, where they have fetched high prices; and the trade would admit of indefinite expansion, and prove a source of great profit, were there a direct service with England. As it is, oranges shipped at Jaffa have to be transhipped at Alexandria or Smyrna; and this affects the condition of the fruit when landed, while it adds materially to the cost ot carriage. The orange production of the district at present is about eight to ten millions annually, and they are sold at eight to ten a penny retail.

The most convincing proof of the growing prosperity of Ja& is to be

found in the price of the land. It has risen ten, and in some cases fifteen fold. A plot that would with difficulty bave fetched £5 twenty year 3 a?o is now bought for £SO or £6O. Practically speaking, land near Jaffa is not to he had.

Even the lesser towns along the coast show signs of renewed activity. Haifa, the little port at the foot of Mount Carmel, has roused from its torpor, and gone in for building and rebuilding—on a small scale, of course. It is so changed that Herr Schick, the Government Surveyor of Buildings, declares he did not recognise the place when he revisited it in 1880. Carnrea, once famous, but wholly deserted for centuries, is on the highroad to become once again a centre of trade. There is the nucleus of a new town riiin?, inhabited by Moslem immigrants from Bosoia and Herzegovina ; a custom-house is built, and a line of steamers will call there regularly. In the larger towns of the interior the note of progress has been struck, and all are in a state of transition. Bethlehem has been almost entirely rebuilt, and improved out of all knowledge. The streets were almost impassable in winter; now they are paved and tolerably clean, passable at any time. The same may be said of Tiberias and Nazareth. Nablous — the ancient Shechem where Joseph was sold—is become one vast soap-boiling establishment. Its product is in general demand throughout Syria, and it may yet become the Northampton of Palestine for boots. Between Nazireth, Safet, and Nablous, where the olive thrives best, olive trees are being planted at the rate—it is locally stated—of 500,000 a year; and the product of the district in the shape of olive oil is already upwards of six million okes, or fifteen million pounds' weight, for it was so measured there, annually. Highly significant is the fact that the country people and peasantry are investing their money largely in cattle-rearing, a thing undreamed of a few years back. The order of things in Jerusalem, too, is very different from what it was only a few years ago, and the change the Holy Ci y is gradually undergoing strikes every traveller who has revisited the place after an interval of eight or ten seasons. Whole quarters have been rebuilt, sanitation is cared for, the streets are well lighted, clocks are placed on many public buildings, and the gates are no longer closed at sundown, to the inconvenience of residents and the hindrance of tradespeople. The tanneries and slaughterhouses have been removed to a distance, and outside the walls of the ancient enclosure a " new Jerusalem" is s'owly rising, that at the present rate of growth will in a very few years quite overshadow the old city, exceeding it both in area and population.— The Spectator.